


Hear it in stereo

by spiteandmalice



Series: Hear it in Stereo [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Everyone is Queer, M/M, Offscreen minor character deaths consistent with canon, Pacific Rim AU, Solo Siblings, minor Rey/Rose implied in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:08:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25068172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiteandmalice/pseuds/spiteandmalice
Summary: Long ago, legions of monstrous creatures called Kaiju arose from the sea, bringing with them all-consuming war. To fight the Kaiju, mankind developed giant robots called Jaegers.This is the story of the Anchorage Shatterdome's fight against the apocalypse. A Kylux Pacific Rim AU.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Series: Hear it in Stereo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815535
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45





	Hear it in stereo

**Author's Note:**

> This is a love letter for my favourite AU/movie and my favourite ship: Kylux.
> 
> For the Pacific Rim fans:  
> I’m sticking to the “real” PR timeline as much as possible. Most Shatterdome/tech info is taken from official sources, but Jaegers and Kaiju within are created for this alternative timeline. “Droid” Jagers are small single person Jagers from PR2. Saber Athena’s Ionic Twinblades are basically lightsabers aren’t they?
> 
> For non Pacific Rim fans:  
> TL;DR: giant mechs (Jaegers) with mentally linked (“drifting”) pilots inside, that fight big scary monsters (kajiu) coming out of an interdimensional portal in the Pacific Ocean. Oh, and the world will end if they fail. 
> 
> I'm on twitter @spiteandmalice if you want to talk Jaegars or SW!

Rey stretches out her arms to greet the sunlight as she exits the dark engineering workshop. It’s a bright spring day, and the sunlight is glinting on the waves of the bay next to the Shatterdome. 

There’s a group of new arrivals disembarking from a helicopter and Rey greets them as she passes by, welcoming them to Anchorage. 

They’ve had a lot of new arrivals recently, people from all over the world flying into this tiny little base in Alaska. The kaiju had gotten braver and more vicious in the last few months, and only the Anchorage base was still fighting back.

And they’d keep fighting back, until the bitter end. 

But first, Rey’s going to have lunch.

Shipments coming in equals decent food, for a few days at least, and the mess hall reflects her good mood. There’s fresh food instead of reheated canteen slop: baguettes with various fillings, heaped bowls of crunchy salad and potato wedges. Rey’s even got a brownie for dessert, topped with fresh raspberries. 

The only thing dragging her down today is Kylo, her drift partner and brother, who’s standing at her side, his mess hall tray wobbling as he stifles a yawn with one hand. 

He was sluggish this morning too, responding to their joint training simulation a beat behind her every time. She knows he didn’t push himself too hard at the gym the night before, like he often does because they’d watched a movie instead, curled up on bean bags in the rec room with the other pilots. 

They reach their usual bench, sit either side of it and Kylo shoves his tray out in front of him, towards Rey. 

“Take my dessert, I’m not hungry.”

She frowns, but reaches for the plate anyway. “If you’re-”

“I’m having a nap. Wake me if we’re needed.” He rests his head on his folded arms on the mess hall table. 

It’s been a good day for Rey, so naturally she has to watch the nightmares come to Kylo again.

_He keeps bouncing his leg, waiting for Snoke to make a decision. Was he good enough this time? Everything aches from the previous test, and he’s scared-_

_“Good boy Ben, that’s it, just_ one _more test-”_

_Snoke nodding to the techs to put the headset back on-_

_Then:_

_the pain the pain the pain_

_help_

_help_

_HELP_

The entire mess hall falls silent when he screams. It’s a horrific noise, a wail of terror, of panic. Rey’s on her feet instantly, shaking him awake. Two of the med techs run over, as does General Hux from where he’d been eating with the other officers. 

Kylo finally lifts his head from the table, eyes blinking and unfocused on the group staring at him. 

“What’s- what’s happening?”

“You screamed.” Rey’s eyes are filled with tears, despite the angry set to her mouth. 

“No, I, no I didn’t-” Kylo slurs the words, wobbling slightly on the bench and Rey pulls him back against her to stabilise him, both her hands holding him steady by the shoulders. 

“You did. Let’s leave these people to enjoy their lunch and we’ll get you to your room okay?” She meets Hux’s eyes as she says this and he mouths ‘my office’ at her. She nods tightly, and takes Kylo’s elbow to lead him away. 

When they leave the mess hall the murmur of conversation starts up again.

\---

Hux has been the base commander for the past five weeks, but he’s only had time to briefly meet the pilots because they were either training, fighting or recovering from fighting. Even if they’d had a pilot crew of a hundred rather than the handful Hux had inherited, Kylo would have still stuck out in his mind: tall, dark haired, attractive and imposing. His flight partner is notable for different reasons, she trains twice as hard as everyone else, but does it with a smile.

When she arrives in his office Rey’s body language immediately puts Hux on edge. Her smile is nowhere to be seen: her fists are balled up, her shoulders hunched. 

He pulls out a chair for her but she shakes her head and stands at attention instead. He stands too, leans his hip against his desk. 

“Tell me what’s going on with Ren, Ranger Skywalker.”

Rey shrugs. “I don’t know.”

He waits. Silence from him often makes people want to fill in the gaps, to ease the awkwardness with _something_. Rey to her credit doesn’t give in, but instead fidgets, fingers tugging at the edge of her training suit. 

Hux tries again. “It looked like he was having a nightmare. It is the kaiju? As you probably know, Ren’s file is heavily redacted-”

That was an understatement. Hux had never seen a file as redacted as Ren’s. It raised a lot of red flags in his opinion, but he’d seen how Rey and Ren’s Jaeger -nicknamed _The Force_ operated- and well, it was the end of the world after all. He’d just have to cope with the lack of information. 

“- but surely as his co-pilot you know what’s wrong. I want him to see a psychiatrist. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Rey crosses her arms over her chest, stares him down. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He hasn’t brought it into the drift.”

“He’s had these nightmares before, am I correct?” Hux crosses his arms too, mirroring her stance. 

Rey breaks eye contact. “He won’t admit it, but yes. I’ve heard him scream before in his sleep. He’s stayed in my room some nights. He can’t sleep but can’t be alone either.”

Hux raises an eyebrow at that. “In your room? Do I have to remind you of the fraternisation rules we have in this program?”

The fraternisation rules on the base were simple: fuck whoever you want, but if you fuck your co-pilot and it ends badly… that could potentially be a Jaeger down if drift compatability was affected. There were too few trained pilots left to risk that disaster. 

Rey scowls at him. “He’s my _brother_ for fuck- I mean, sorry General. Excuse my language. He’s my brother. We happen to have different surnames.” 

Hux ensures his relief isn’t seen on his face. _Siblings_. That wasn’t in any of his files. “Continue.”

“There’s a period of his life that’s absent from our memories. When we drift our childhoods mingle, then there’s a gap, then there’s the time we’ve been together in the program. I haven’t drifted with many others, but there’s usually not a space missing. It’s like it’s been erased?”

Hux would bet a brand new Jaeger that Ren’s redacted timeline would match that particular gap exactly.

“Is Ren in his room now?” 

Rey nods.

“I’ll visit him shortly. Thank you for the information, Ranger. Dismissed.”

\---

Hux knocks three times on Ren’s door before he hears a voice from within.

“Gimme a minute, I need to find some pants!”

Hux scolds himself at his internal response wanting to tell Ren not to bother finding any. 

Ren swings the door open, hair wild and sleep mussed, regulation workout pants low on his hips, with no shirt on. Hux drags his eyes from Ren’s chest to his face and hopes Ren hadn’t noticed. Ren smirks at him, so that was unlikely. _Shit_. 

“I wanted to speak to you about what happened in the mess hall Ren.”

Ren steps back from the door. “Grab a chair, General.”

He takes the only chair, and Ren leans against the wall. Ren’s quarters are spartan in the extreme, no sign of personality anywhere besides an unframed photo of him and Rey in their flight suits, grinning at the camera, arms slung around each other. 

Ren notices him looking at the photo and offers: “Our first kill together.” 

Hux thinks back to the file. “Chernabog, cat 2, right?”

Ren grins at him, pleased. “You know your kaiju, General.” 

Hux grins back. “I’ve read every file I could get my hands on. Knowledge is power.”

Ren inclines his head in agreement. “I guess you want to talk about what happened earlier. In the mess hall. It won’t happen again.” 

“I’m not sure how you can guarantee that, Ren. I’d like to recommend you see a psychiatrist.” Hux knows his next sentence is a cheap tactic, but he’s going to use it anyway. “Not just for yourself, but for Rey. You don’t want something interfering in your drift, do you?”

Ren looks angry now. “It won’t. It’s not like _that_. It’s separate to us, to her.” 

He’s looming over Hux now, but Hux isn’t afraid. He’s faced down literal monsters in his own time piloting, an angry human man is nothing in comparison. He stands.

“Back off, Ranger. And you’ve just made that psych rec an order.” 

Ren takes a step back, runs his hand through his hair, looks frustrated. “Fine, but please don’t take me off the rota, Rey’s safe from me.”

“9am tomorrow, sharp. I’ll arrange the appointment with the med clinic. I hear of anything, and I mean _anything_ untoward and you’re off the rota. Am I understood?”

“Yes, General.” 

“Get some sleep Ren.”

\---

The base psych team email him at noon to say Ren completed a full evaluation, and it’s within the guidelines set for pilots. 

Hux snorts. The ‘guidelines’ are wide-ranging, from what Hux remembers of his own training, once you weren’t a danger to your co-pilot, or in the midst of a mental breakdown, you were seen as fit to pilot. 

There’s never been enough pilots. 

\---

Finn’s lab in Anchorage is much smaller than the one he had in LA, but it’s become both his work space and bedroom in the last few weeks. He can’t leave, there’s too much to do. 

He’s been to enough bases- both when he was in the military and then in the Pan Pacific Defence Corp program- to know that there’s a weird energy here. Every other Shatterdome and base has closed worldwide. Governments are focusing on weapons and walls. 

They’ve tried that before. It never worked. 

The weird energy also comes from everyone counting down the days until the end of the world. Until the monsters coming are too much for the humans to push back. Until they’re overwhelmed. 

Until the humans are wiped out by the creatures as they take the Earth for their own. 

Finn’s working on the calculations for estimating how long they have left, helping the engineers with calculations for weaponry and developing new power coils for the Jaegers. 

His lab is normally empty, apart from maybe Poe dropping by to bring Finn lunch when he’s forgotten because he’s too deep in equations- but this is the third day in a row Rose Tico has appeared. 

Rose has been on base for a week and Finn’s already sure they’re going to be good friends. She’s currently describing a plan to build a new Jaeger from the scrapped models that litter the ‘graveyard’ on base. The whiteboards are covered in scribbles and notes in both their handwriting. 

Finn leans back in his chair and waits for Rose to pause before saying: “I think we should do it.”

She stops writing with a squeak of the marker. “You do?”

“It’s going to be a lot of work, we’ve got no budget for it, no pilots, and I have _no_ clue how to connect the analogue interface to our current LOCENT system, but yeah, I think it’s a good idea.”

Rose beams at him. “I knew you’d agree!” Her face falls. “You’re right though, it’s going to be a _lot_ of work. Paige and I once used the Russian style connectors to branch the analogue problem, do we have any on base?”

Finn pushes back with his chair and the wheels squeal as he slides across the room. Digging around in a crate, he pulls out some connectors and tosses a set to Rose, Cyrillic script clearly stamped on the metal plates holding them together. 

“These kind of connectors?”

Rose examines them briefly. “Yeah, they’re perfect. The biggest issue is power, but the repair teams are saying that gold-coloured old Jaeger-

She pauses, looks up at Finn.

“ _C-3PO._ ” He fills in.

“-yeah thanks, yes, _C-3PO_ ; they say he’s going to have to be scrapped. So we can take his reactor for power. It’s easier to rebuild from nothing than try to strip his type of wiring.” 

Finn’s not surprised at this news, _C-3PO_ had been a backup Jaeger for the last eighteen months since Gial and Aftab Ackbar had died. _C-3PO_ had been one of a kind, but Rose was right, it’d be easier to build something from the graveyard than try to reform _C-3PO_. 

Even if _C-3PO_ ’d been in good shape, there’s not enough pilots. Not everyone could connect with another person to share the neural load safely, and even fewer could manage the mental strain it took to pilot, never mind the trauma of facing off against giant monsters pulled from your worst nightmares with nothing but your courage and a Jaeger between them and the city you are defending. 

“Have you met Rey yet? She pilots _The Force_. She’s working on some new reactor coils, maybe see if she’s got any ideas?”

“Yeah, I met her the other day, we’ve discussed the power cables, she’s uh, very nice.”

Finn grins at Rose’s sudden blush. _Interesting_. 

\---

As the General of the base, Hux tries to stay hands off. He’s got great teams who work smoothly. When he piloted he didn’t appreciate micro-managing or pointless meetings. If you put your life on the line every day, being told by a paper pusher how to do your job would frustrate the hell out of you. 

But sometimes meetings need to happen. So currently Ren’s sitting in front of Hux, glaring at him. 

“Would you like a drink?” Hux offers.

“No thanks. Why am I here?”

“Why is Rey not registered as your sister?”

“It’s a long story.”

Hux raises an eyebrow. “And that’s why I offered you a drink. I expect you to talk. I’m all ears.”

Kylo sighs, picks up a bottle of water, tossing it between his hands for a moment before he speaks.

“You could say saving the world is a family business. My birth name is Ben Solo. My father was Han Solo, my mother was Leia Organa, she piloted-”

“- _R2D2_ with her twin.” Hux fills in.

Kylo nods. “Yeah, Luke and her used to keep score of their kills against Han and Chewie, both teams piloted out of San Diego. Until one day Han and Leia fell in love. They had Rey and I, and kept us out of the limelight, wanting us to have normal childhoods.” 

He cracks the bottle open and takes a long swig. “Our grandparents raised us. Rey took their name, Skywalker. I joined the PPDC at 14 and I took someone else’s name.”

“Whose?”

Kylo shakes his head. “I don’t want to discuss it right now. All you need to know is that it was important at the time she joined that Rey was another anonymous recruit.”

“You’ll have to tell me some day.”

“You’ll have to buy me a proper drink first, General. Maybe two. I like rum.”

Hux flushes and Ren seems to brighten at that, knowing he’s gotten under Hux’s skin. 

\---

The next kaiju attack isn’t predicted until tomorrow but they’re taking it easy with the booze, sticking to light beer. The other pilots are on the roster for tonight anyway, so Rey’s stretched across the pilot rec room sofa, munching on chips while Kylo gets them both another beer from the small fridge in the corner. He attempts to sit on her legs to annoy her, she throws a chip at his head. He accequises and sits on the large bean bag by her feet. 

They don’t discuss the war - they never discuss the war- instead focus on Rey’s current engineering project, which brings them around to the new arrivals on base. Kylo can’t help but notice Rey blushes when she discusses how Rose is helping her with power fluctuations on the _Force_. Rey’s been a pilot since she was sixteen but she’s been tinkering since she was old enough to hold a wrench. 

“I’m gonna ask her out after this project is done. We’ve only known each other two weeks, I don’t want to rush anything, y’know? You and the General on the other hand, nearly two months, wow that’s practically a lifetime…” Rey makes a kissy face and Kylo snatches her bag of chips from her hands, holds them away from her as she tries to reach for them. 

“No chips if you’re gonna mock me.”

Rey pouts and falls back onto the sofa. 

“I just think you should make a move! I was talking to Finn earlier and he’s now 97% confident there’s going to be a double event soon. That it’ll be two category fours. Maybe even a category five. Remember when the first cat four landed?”

The first category four kaiju, codenamed Varian, had destroyed most of downtown LA in under forty minutes and had left two Jaeger teams dead. 

Hux and Phasma had taken it down, ensuring his promotion to General and hers to Captain, but neither had gotten into a Jaeger again. Apparently their neural handshake had been destroyed by the kaiju and they both ended up comatose for weeks after. The neural overload had killed the other Jaeger teams, they were lucky to have survived. Hux had taken over the San Francisco Shatterdome after that, until his move here to Anchorage. 

“I thought we had a rule about discussing the war?”

“You stole my chips! That’s a declaration of war!”

Kylo tosses them back to her. They sit there in silence for a moment with only the rustling of the chip bag and crunching until Kylo breaks it.

“You know it’s a terrible idea. He’s the _General_. Plus, he’s not really my type.”

Rey waves her beer bottle at him, indignant, as she chews and swallows the mouthful of chips quickly.

“He’s _exactly_ your type, that’s the problem! I saw how you looked at him the first time you saw him.” 

Ren grins and takes a long drink from his bottle.

“I guess I can’t hide much from you can I?”

Rey looks a little sad at that comment. “I would have thought that was true, until I realised how much of your life is missing when we drift.” 

“I don’t want to talk about-”

“You _never_ want to talk about it! But _something_ happened to you between you leaving home as Ben and becoming Kylo. You should talk to _someone_ about it, if you can’t talk to me. Before it rips you in two.”

Ren drains his beer, puts the bottle in the recycling bin. “Conversation over. I’m going to bed.”

“Fine. But please, talk to someone.”

He flips her off as he leaves but she doesn’t return the gesture, just shakes her head slowly at him, like he’s disappointed her. She looks a lot like Leia in that moment.

Kylo ends up outside Hux’s door. The officer’s corridor is just as run-down as the pilot’s corridor, but Hux has a smart plaque on his door with his name. 

Kylo knocks twice, hears the tug of the bolt and Hux is standing there. 

He’s wearing a black robe and looks adorably ruffled, feet bare.

“Ren? Is there something wrong? I didn’t hear the alarm-”

Kylo pushes past him into his room, and then takes his wrist and tugs him close. 

Hux looks down at Kylo’s mouth and Kylo leans forward, so _so_ slowly and presses a kiss to Hux’s mouth. Hux sighs and his lips part, and he kisses back for a moment, it’s as good as Kylo had imagined it could be, and the General tastes like he’s just been drinking tea, his mouth warm and sweet. 

Hux suddenly shoves Kylo backwards, and he stumbles.

“Ren. Two rules. One: never touch me. Two: _never touch me_ . Do you understand, Ranger? I am your _General_ , the leader of this Shatterdome. You are my _pilot_. Do you understand?”

Ren nods, silent.

“Say it.” Hux hisses, leaning forward and gesturing at his ear.

Ren leans towards it and grits out “I understand, General.” 

“Leave.”

\---

Hux watches Kylo give a sloppy salute and leave. He closes the door behind him, pulls the bolt across. 

What had he done to make Kylo think that sort of behaviour was acceptable? It might be the end of the world, but there’s _rules_ dammit, regulations that they need to adhere to. 

Order to maintain. 

He touches a hand to his lips. 

Rules are rules, no matter how much he wants to ignore them. He is the head of this facility, the one fixed point in the maelstrom of this war between humankind and kaiju. 

There’s no time left for something as human as _feelings_. 

\---

The next day Kylo looks lost in thought as Mitaka starts to place the flight suit panels on him. He’d come in a few minutes late, running full pelt from the other side of the Shatterdome when the kaiju alarm had gone off and Rey’s flight suit was already nearly fully on. 

“You okay, Kylo? Sleep okay?” Rey reaches across the top of Thannison’s head where he’s placing her leg sensors and pokes Kylo in the bicep.

He blinks, as if just realising she was still there. “I did something stupid last night.”

She grins. “Spill.”

“I kissed Hux.” At those words, Mitaka drops the flight suit panel in his hand with a clatter, Thannison gasps and Rey’s mouth drops open.

“What?!” “The General?” “Holy _fuck_ why-” all three voices chime at the same time.

Kylo replies to them all the best he can. “I wanted to, and I thought he wanted me to as well. I guess I was wrong.”

Rey winces. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

Kylo shrugs, earning him a glare from Mitaka who’s trying to fit the shoulder panels now. “I’m sorry too.”

Thannison steps back from Rey, hands over her helmet, and waits for Mitaka to finish on Kylo’s suit before handing Kylo’s over. 

Rey gives Kylo a final sympathetic look before placing her helmet over her head and switching her comm channel on.

“Force 1 to LOCENT. Comm check.” she calls out.

“LOCENT here, Force 1, hearing you loud and clear. Force 2, do you read?” Phasma’s voice rings out throughout the cockpit. 

Kylo places his helmet on. “Force 2 to LOCENT.”

“Force 2, hearing you loud and clear. Righty-o then people, as you know we have a cat 3, codenamed Quidcrush, 16 klicks offshore. No special powers seen on drone, so it should be a simple point and shoot. Good luck.”

\---

Nothing is ever as simple as it would seem. Even though the transport brought them out to the kaiju in minutes, it had already moved close enough to the shore to be causing waves of terrified people to flood inland.

The drone recon was right, Quidcrush has no special weapons, but it’s _fast_ , faster than anything they’ve ever seen, and with its current trajectory it’s heading straight for downtown.

The transports drop them into the shallow waters at one end of the beach. 

Rey clicks the system from transport hold to pilot control. “Force 1 here, pilot control on.”

“LOCENT here, pilot control on, confirmed at my end.” 

“We have eyes on the kaiju. We’re going to cut it off on the beach, we’ll have the advantage on solid ground.”

“Force 2 here, negative on that, we’re going to cut it off past the pier, in the sea.”

“Force 1 here, we’re heading to the beach.” Rey snaps back.

There’s a sharp burst of a klaxon, then the automated pilot warning system comes over the cockpit loudspeaker, a loud robotic voice calling out:

**_WARNING HEMISPHERES OUT OF ALIGNMENT: 80%_ **

“LOCENT here. Watch your sync levels, I know you’re better than this. The General says head to the beach.”

They reach the beach in a few giant steps, and Quidcrush finally notices them, turns and roars. There’s people below them, trapped between the sea and the high tidal wall. Quidcrush is blocking their only exit. 

**_WARNING HEMISPHERES OUT OF ALIGNMENT: 60%_ **

“LOCENT here, your sync is becoming more unstable, _Millennium Falcon_ has been dispatched. Either finish this quickly, or come home.” 

The _Force_ has a clamp in it’s chest for securing kaiju, and they activate it, holding Quidcrush tightly. 

“Got him. Let’s use the double lightsaber technique, Rey.”

“Kylo we can’t. There’s too many people here, the chance of injuring one is too high. We can drag him further down the beach, do it then.”

Her left hand moves involuntarily, Kylo’s will pulling it upwards to ignite her lightsaber.

“Kylo, I said no! If-”

**_WARNING HEMISPHERES OUT OF ALIGNMENT: 30%_ **

“LOCENT here, stand down _Force_ . I repeat, stand down. Just hold him there,the _Falcon_ is 2 minutes out.” 

Rey can’t see the people underneath _The Force_ , only knows what the sensors see, but she can imagine them huddled and terrified in the shadow of two giants. She swallows hard, and pulls her lightsaber hand free of Kylo’s grip. It feels like walking through quicksand, like drowning, like having a migraine in every part of her body. Vision blurry, she takes a step away from Quidcrush, _The Force’s_ clamp tight around his leg, dragging him away from the people.

 **CRITICAL** **_: DRIFT UNSYNCED: POWER DOWN IN 25 - 24 - 23 - 22 -_ **

Out of sync Kylo’s rage is a physical entity that’s dragging her down, but she has to keep going, every step aches and she feels too hot and too cold all at once. She swallows back bile.

**_21- 20 - 19 - 18-_ **

Quidcrush seems to realise he’s being dragged away from his prey, and starts to thrash in their grip. 

**_17 - 16- 15- 14_ **

Rey keeps walking. The kaiju whips his claws up, aiming for their weak spot- the head pod. A move like that would be simple for them to dodge usually, but Rey can’t make Kylo’s side of the Jaeger move fast enough when he’s fighting her every movement, and Quidcrush manages to strike the pod. 

**_13 - 12 - 11 - 10_ **

Rey’s vision is still swimming, so she sees a flash of bright blue sky, a rain of yellows sparks and hears Kylo’s scream. The sensors say she’s almost at the water’s edge now, and there’s no one around. She ignites her lightsaber and stabs Quidcrush. But she can’t cut all the way through, and she sobs. Kylo’s screams never stop in her head, but his red lightsaber meets her yellow, and Quidcrush’s torso is cleaved in two. 

Sensors register no life signs for the kaiju. It’s over.

**_9 - 8 - 7 - 6_ **

She can hear Phasma saying something in her headset but she can only focus on Kylo’s screams. 

Darkness comes.

When she wakes it’s to the taste of vomit in her mouth, and the bright lights of the infirmary. She’s alone in her own head again, the sudden silence hurts her as much as the screams had.

She tries to sit up. “Kylo-Kylo- _Kylo_!”

A nurse appears and gently presses her back into the bed. “He’s still unconscious. Stay still, and I’ll get you a wheelchair and you can visit him.” 

The relief in knowing he’s still alive makes her cry- she starts sobbing so hard she starts to hiccup. _He’s alive. He’s alive._

She’s not sure what she expects when she sees him, but he seems to be made up of mostly bandages, looking bizarrely small and fragile in the medical bay bed.

She also doesn’t expect Hux to be there also, looking paler than usual and miserable, sitting in a hard plastic chair beside Kylo. The nurse pushes Rey’s wheelchair to the other side of Kylo’s bed and leaves the three of them alone. 

They say nothing for a few minutes, while Rey takes in the fact half Kylo’s face is bandaged, as is one shoulder and his abdomen. His heartbeat is steady on the monitor and it jumps when she takes his hand. Even out of the drift he knows she’s here. 

“This is my fault. He was... distracted.” Hux finally offers. 

“Do you think it’s because of the kiss? That’s rather egotistical of you.” Rey snaps back. “He was unhappy about it, and I could feel his longing, but his actions on the beach were his own choice. He decided to follow his rage rather than listen to me, or Phasma. It wasn't distraction, it was a choice. That’s on _him_.”

Hux opens his mouth to retort, or to dress her down for snapping at him, but Kylo takes that moment to open his eyes, and he smiles at them both, gaze unfocused, clearly under the influence of the pain meds that are hung on the drip by his bedside. 

He squeezes Rey’s hand. “Did we get him?”

She starts crying again and starts to explain, and Hux slips out of the room to leave them in peace. 

\---

Hux signs the last of the paperwork and drops the stylus on his desk as the two pilots enter. 

Three Jaeger teams… down to two.

“Dameron, Holdo, I’m making you the front line defence for Hong Kong.” 

They both nod. Dameron opens his mouth as if to say something, but closes it again. Poe Dameron is the best pilot Hux has ever seen but he had an attitude that Hux didn’t appreciate. They’d had a year together as cadets, and Poe’s sense of humour had grated on Hux even then.

“It’ll be our honour, sir.” Holdo says. Hux likes Holdo, she’s always been direct with him, and fully dedicated to her duty...and mostly because she didn’t roll her eyes the way Dameron did when Hux spoke.

He wasn’t sure what the relationship between Dameron and Holdo was, it seemed rather antagonistic, but it worked. He wasn’t going to complain. They ran the _Black Squadron_ together _._

 _Black Squadron_ were an unusual team, made up of four, small, single pilot Jaegers called ‘droids’. There had been two squadrons guarding Hong Kong at one stage called _Blue_ and _Red_ ; droid Jaegers were small and quick to get around the city to help contain kaiji attacks until the real firepower got there, and to provide backup. 

Now there was only one squadron left: _Black Squadron_. 

“You’re both dismissed.” 

Hux picks his tablet up again, sends a short email to Calrissian and Chewbacca, the third pilot team, informing them of the change. They’d expect it, their Jaeger, _the Millenium Falcon_ was a lot slower than the _Black Squadron_ squad.

At the height of the kaiju war, 7 years previous, the _Falcon_ had been the fastest Jaeger in the world, piloted by the famous Han Solo and Chewbacca. Hux and Phasma had been cadets then, and the _Falcon_ had assisted with a kill at base in Honolulu where they were stationed. They’d both run the simulations for that particular kill until they knew it in their sleep. 

Han Solo had died intercepting a fatal blow intended for _The_ _Force_. At the time Hux had wondered what had made him do it, but now with the knowledge that his children had been piloting, it seemed a beautiful, noble and selfless gesture. 

Hux’s own father wouldn’t have done the same. He’d have probably put Hux in danger in the first place.

Brendol Hux had worked with a set of scientists at the start of the kaiju war, developing the war machinery that would eventually turn into the Jaeger program. 

Eventually their methods had been seen as too extreme, too dangerous for the pilots and they had been discarded. Brendol had died in a Shatterdome attack. 

Hux shivered. Brendol was long dead, and yet he still haunted Hux’s thoughts. _Bastard_. 

\---

Hux visits Kylo in between his shifts. He tries not to think too hard about it, that way leads to madness, sleepless nights and self-doubt. 

Kylo’s easy to talk to, plays a mean game of Scrabble, and even laughs at Hux’s pathetic attempts at jokes.

“I brought you something.” Hux proffers the tablet he’d picked up that morning. 

Kylo winces. “I know I’m behind on my paperwork! Look, you know I’m a flyboy, I don’t always -”

“No, no it’s a new tablet, for you. It’s got unlimited streaming and there’s credits for games. Rey told me your own had broken a few weeks ago.”

Kylo takes it, starts flicking through the menus. 

“Oh wow, this is really nice! I didn’t expect the PPDC to spring for something decent.”

“I. Uh. I bought it for you.”

Kylo stops flicking. “Oh. That’s sweet. You’re so sweet.”

Hux frowns. “I can take it back if you’re going to mock me...”

Kylo shoves the tablet under his sheets immediately. “No! I love it. I’m just surprised to see you do have feelings under there after all. A squidgy, caramel center.”

“You’re technically not under my command at the moment, but that of the ranking doctor here. I’ll say this once, so listen up closely: fuck you, Kylo Ren.” 

Kylo laughs, a deep genuine laugh and Hux laughs too. 

“Seriously though, thank you.” Kylo fake coughs. “ _Sweetie_.”

Hux flips him off as he leaves, and Kylo’s laughter follows Hux out of the med bay.

\---

Rose has taken up a corner of Finn’s office since she’s arrived, and he’d missed this, being able to bounce ideas off other people. 

They both look up from their laptops as Rey knocks on the open door as she enters the lab.

Rey spends her evenings with Kylo, helping him with physio and training, but she’s spent a lot of her days working on the new Jaeger’s thermal pipeline design with Rose.

“Hey. Hi.” 

Rose beams at her. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Finn says as well and Rey grins at him. He likes Rey, she doesn’t have the scientific backgrounds Rose and he have but she’s got practical skills and knowledge that has helped the project immensely. She’s excited to get this Jaeger up and running, to get back out fighting and he admires that. 

“I need to grab some more of those twisted connectors, the ones for joints?” Rey asks them both, but Finn turns back to his laptop as Rose jumps up to help Rey.

This dance happens every day. 

“Oh I’ll help you find some!” Rose says, digging around in a box. She passes the connectors to Rey, and they both laugh awkwardly when their hands touch. Finn grins into his coffee mug. They’re ridiculous but cute. 

Rey leaves again, promising to meet them later for coffee and Finn waits until she’s safely down the corridor before turning to Rose.

“When are you going to ask Rey out?”

“I can’t. We’re too busy.” Rose doesn’t look up from her laptop, now furiously typing.

“I can hold the fort down for a night. Go ask her out.”

“I can’t. It’s not like you and Poe.”

“It’s- What? Wait. What’s like me and Poe?”

Rose stops typing, turns to face Finn. “Poe’s clearly gone on you. Rey’s just being friendly.”

“Poe’s not gone on me. He’s my best friend here.”

Rose turns fully in her chair then, throwing her hands up. 

“Hang on... you seriously think Poe’s just your friend? He comes here to flirt with you every day!”

“Poe flirts with everyone.”

“Finn, Finn Finn... He flirts with everyone, but he brings _you_ presents. Brings _you_ dinner. He comes in here and flutters his eyelashes at you.”

“He does not.”

Rose stares at him. “I swear he does. Every day.”

Finn stares back, silent for a moment.

“Oh.” Finn finally says. “He... does. And we’ve messed around a few times, but I didn’t think anything of it-”

Rose leans forward in her chair. “See! I told you!”

“I’ll talk to him, you talk to Rey.”

Rose narrows her eyes. “Fine. Deal.”

\---

Hux has known Phasma since they were sixteen years old. They’d risked their lives for each other hundreds of times.

But today was the day Hux might just kill her. She’d invited him to the control room under the pretense of having a cup of tea together, but it turned out to be a thinly-veiled excuse to meddle in his private life. 

He’d never even suspected an ulterior motive, because that wasn’t like Phasma. 

...Yet here they were.

“All I’m saying is that I think you and Ren should try to pilot together!”

Hux glares at her. “And like I said before: fuck off.”

Phasma looks undisturbed by the venom in his voice. “I think you two could work. At least try and drift with him. I know you miss it.”

Hux shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, I’m the Marshal of this Shatterdome now. I can't get up and leave to fight.”

“There won’t be a Shatterdome left if we don’t seal the breach. The kaiju will keep coming until we’re all dead. You _know_ this.” 

Hux doesn’t respond.

Phasma sighs, leans back in her chair. “You and I stopped being a team because of what Varian did to us, otherwise we both know we would still be out there as pilots until it killed us. If I could drift with someone again, I would in a _heartbeat_. You still have that choice! Ren’s going to be back in a Jaeger the moment Medical allows him, and he needs someone like you beside him.”

“Someone like me?”

“A stubborn bastard who’ll moderate his temper and make the right decisions in the heat of the battle. The end of the world is coming, Armitage. At least _talk_ to him about it.”

The breach alarm starts to scream. Phasma picks up her headset.

“ _Black Squadron_ , paging _Black Squadron_.”

The alarm continues to sound, on-screen the members of _Black Squadron_ check in one by one: 

First Snap Wexley, then Amilyn Holdo and Jessika Pava at almost the same time and finally their leader, Poe Dameron. 

The alarm ceases.

Hux drains the end of his tea, slides his chair away from Phasma to watch the other monitor, picking up a headset. 

Poe’s voice comes through a few minutes later. “Black Leader to LOCENT. Comm check.”

“LOCENT here. I can hear you loud and clear Dameron. Black 2, 3 and 4, comm check.”

The other three pilots answer in turn. 

“LOCENT to _Black Squadron_ : transport commencing. Drone surveillance says cat 4, codenamed _Supremacy_. He’s very, very strong: the strategy team is recommending avoidance and a long-distance take down.”

“Black Leader to LOCENT. Understood.” 

Despite the name of the squadron, each member had a brightly painted droid Jaeger. 

Poe’s _BB-8_ was white and orange, Holdo’s _R4DDUS_ was white with lilac limbs the same colour as her hair, Wexley’s _R6-D8_ was white and yellow, and Pava’s _O-R10N_ was a deep purple. 

The battle began.

 _Supremacy_ brought entire buildings down on the _Squadron_ , shook apart bridges while they fired everything they had. 

“Black Leader to LOCENT. We’re barely making a dent, we need more info!”

Phasma frowned. “Understood. Patching through General Hux.”

“Hux here. Sensors are saying he has a weak spot on his stomach, so concentrate firepower on that.”

“Understood, General.” 

Phasma’s displays shows the kaiju roaring in pain after _O-R10N_ hits him directly in the abdomen three times with her missiles, looping around to fire again. _Supremacy_ smacks it out of the sky and _O-R10N_ lands heavily, but pilot vitals are okay on the monitor so Hux and Phasma don’t worry.

 _R6-D8_ and _BB-8_ attack at the same time, firing round after round into the monster. _Supremacy_ rips a building up, throws it at them, pinning them in the debris. _BB-8’s_ wheels spin wildly as Dameron tries to escape. 

_Supremacy_ turns on them, begins to approach. Hux feels a sense of dread wash over him as he watches the monitors, if the kaiju reaches them, they’re dead. _O-R10N_ lies only a few steps away from them also, still unmoving.

“Where’s _R4DDUS_?” Hux queries, suddenly realising it had vanished from the drone’s watchful eye.

“LOCENT to Black 2, come in Holdo.” Phasma barks out. She listens for a moment. “There’s no answer.” 

“LOCENT to _Black Squadron._ Does anyone have eyes on Holdo?”

“Black Leader: negative.”

“Black 3: negative.”

A small crowd has gathered in the dispatch bay, watching the banks of monitors that show the live feed from the Jaegers and drones. 

Hux remembers when he used to watch too, back when he commanded San Francisco and every kaiju had been met by an entire team of Jaegers and swiftly dispatched. It had been a good sport to watch, people would bet on the killing blow. Teams rarely got injured.

Now, it was watching four people they loved fight to the death while the kaiju also threatened the half a million other people on shore. Some people held hands while they watched, one or two were clearly praying. 

Phasma mutes her headset. “Will I send in the _Falcon_?”

Hux nods and Phasma leans over to sound the alarm, one eye as always on her screens.

“OH SHIT!” she says suddenly, hand frozen in mid-air and Hux leaps from his chair to see what she’s looking at. 

_R4DDUS_ is launching itself at _Supremacy_ , thrusters clearly overloaded, ready to blow. 

The impact blinds the drone for a moment, then the monitor confirms that _Supremacy_ has been killed.

A second later Black 2’s vitals flatline.

Holdo is dead.

\---

Poe stands on one of the tables in the mess at dinner that night. The entire room falls silent.

He clears his throat.

“When I first met Amilyn Holdo she called me a fly-boy. I told her she was a failed politician and would never make it through the piloting program. She proved me wrong from that very first day. She didn’t take shit from anyone and would be there in a heartbeat if you needed her. And in the end, when we needed her the most, she sacrificed herself so we could keep fighting. I raise my glass to her: my Black 2, my friend. To Holdo!”

Some raise their glasses, some drum on the table with their fists and a shout rings out from every voice “To Holdo!”

The Black Squadron drink themselves to sleep that night, singing and dancing in the rec room between shots and tears. 

Hux mourns alone in his office. Another team, fractured.

\---

 _(Author’s note: the ReyRose companion piece ‘_ _[I'll cry after everything is done and dusted’](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25068355) takes place here) _

\---

Hux is wiping down his treadmill as Kylo walks into the gym. 

“Where’s Skywalker?” Hux queries. The two siblings training together had become a common sight in the gym in the evenings.

“She’s on a date.”

“Rose? I assume.”

Kylo grins. “Yeah, they finally stopped dancing around each other.”

“Good for them.”

Kylo starts to lift some dumbbells, simple cross body curls and Hux watches for a moment while his arms flex.

“Are you watching my form, General?” Kylo asks softly.

Hux licks his lips. “I need my pilots to be at peak physical fitness.” 

Kylo smirks. “Sure. I believe you.” He exercises for another moment, clearly flexing for Hux.

“I spoke to Phasma. Our baselines show we’re drift compatible.”

“I know.” Hux replies.

Kylo stops moving then, puts the dumbbells down heavily on the rack.

“You knew? And you didn’t say anything?”

“What was I going to say? I’m the Marshall of this Shatterdome. If I fight, and I die, who’ll lead?”

“Rey, of course.” 

Hux barks out a laugh at that. “Good point, she’d be an excellent leader. Enjoy your training, I’m going to see how the _Black Squadron_ are.”

Kylo picks up the dumbbells again. 

“Anyway, there’s a bigger question Hux: when are _we_ going to finally stop dancing around each other?”

Hux grimaces. “When the apocalypse is over. When all this fighting, all this death comes to an end, we can have this discussion again.”

Kylo smiles sadly. “I hope we get a chance to do that.”

\---

Kylo tries to shake off the strange feeling of watching _the Force_ from this angle. Kylo and Rey had piloted it from the day it came off the assembly line. It was _theirs_ , it represented their bond, their blood, their love for each other.

Now the limbs jerk stiffly as Rey and Rose start the synchronisation process for their first drift together in _the Force._ Finn pats Kylo on the back reassuringly as _the Force_ starts to move. 

**_NEURAL HANDSHAKE INITIATED_ **

Phasma pops her headset on. “LOCENT to the Force. Comm check.” 

**_DRIFT STABLE: HOLDING AT 98%. 99%. 100%._ **

“Force 1 here!” 

“Force 2, hearing you loud and clear Phasma.”

The excitement is clear over the loudspeakers and Kylo grins despite the feeling of jealousy and loss that are warring in his stomach. He’s glad his sister has Rose, and has this chance to keep fighting. 

He hopes Rey and Rose can finish the final Jaeger before the kaiju attack next, so he can step back in _the Force,_ and take them down. 

Even if it’s without Hux. 

Rey and Rose take their first steps together and the control room applaud and cheer. 

At least Kylo won’t be alone at the end of it all.

\---

Hux is the last to leave the gym when he sees Kylo is still in the kwoon. He’s swinging a smooth wooden staff, working through a kata. 

Hux takes a moment to assess Kylo’s form, there’s the large scar bisecting his face, the mess of tissue at his shoulder, and he knows there’s similar on his abdomen under the tight black vest. But he moves smoothly, undisturbed by the scarring. He’s allowed to resume normal duties, but that’s impossible without a co-pilot or finished Jaeger.

Kylo catches him watching, winks and gestures for Hux to enter the kwoon.

“Come on General, while I’m benched the only fun I have is wiping the floor with everyone. You beat me in Scrabble today, so let me kick your ass here. Grab a staff.” 

They bow, and before Hux has time to fully straighten, Kylo’s staff whips back, then straight down, aiming for Hux’s throat. He bends backwards, drops low, and immediately raises his stick to Kylo’s exposed abdomen. 

“One point to me, Ren.” 

Kylo grins, delighted. “This should be fun.” 

He raises the staff and Hux has to take a few steps backwards quickly, before Kylo swings it to an inch of the curve of Hux’s spine.

“One all, General.”

It’s freeing, to be able to spar like this, he instinctively knows Kylo will block anything he throws at him, and Kylo seems to realise the same, and becomes more vicious, rougher. Hux is faster but Kylo is stronger. They dodge and parry, until eventually they drop to the floor, sweating hard. They’d lost count of points, but neither had ever gotten the upper hand. 

Kylo throws him a bottle of water and a towel and they mop their sweat up, sitting facing each other on the kwoon floor. Hux gulps down a few mouthfuls of water, closes his eyes, tries to catch his breath. He _knew_ it’d be like this.

They _were_ drift compatible, it wasn’t just an equation on a piece of paper and it was the most compatible Hux’d ever felt. When he’d drifted with Phasma there was a sense of order, of pieces slotted into place, compatible cogs in a machine to make the whole work smoothly. This was like oil and water, mixing together to become one, not knowing where the other began, and the other finished. A whole.

Kylo reaches a hand out, lets it hover between them. Hux knows Kylo feels the same way, he can see it in his eyes. 

“Can I touch you? Please?” Kylo says softly. 

Hux laughs, feeling slightly hysterical. He feels on the edge, like he’s about to step off a cliff and let gravity take him, or when he and Phasma faced Varian after the kaiju had killed the two other teams and they’d accepted that they were next to die.

As if the outcome is already inevitable, set into motion by the universe, and Hux is merely watching it- a spectator in his own life.

“No, because _this_ can’t happen.” Hux gestures in the space between their bodies. 

“Why not? You feel it too.”

“Do you think I can fuck you, then send you out to your death?”

Ren shrugs. “If the Force goes down, the Shatterdome is likely to fall after.”

Hux takes another long drink from his bottle of water, rolls his eyes at Ren’s casual view about his possible death. It’s not a brag, but a simple fact. There’s only a handful of machines and people standing between the kaiju threat and the eradication of humankind. 

Kylo grins at him, crooked and wry, eyes crinkling as if he knows what Hux is thinking. 

“It’s the end of the world Hux, didn’t you get the memo?” 

Hux twists the lid back on the water bottle, chucks it on the floor and reaches for Kylo.

 _“Yes.”_ He spits out before he digs his hands into Kylo’s sweaty mess of hair and kisses him.

Ren surges into the kiss, hands pulling Hux close to his body and they grapple for a moment, Hux wraps himself around Kylo, fingers digging into the muscles of his back, legs tight around his waist and Hux lets himself just _feel_ for once.

Ren nips at Hux’s neck, licks the sweat still there. Hux tries to tug him down to the floor, but Ren pushes him gently down until he’s on his back, and then slides down his body, until he’s between Hux’s knees.

Hux lifts his hips and Ren helps tug his pants down and off. A part of Hux is distantly horrified at the fact that anyone on base could walk in and see him like this, their General bare-assed on the kwoon floor, about to get blown by one of his Rangers, but that part gets overruled by the first warm ghost of Ren’s breath over Hux’s balls, the first nuzzle of his nose against Hux’s pubic hair and Hux closes his eyes. 

It’s the end of the fucking world, Hux deserves a blowjob. If it happens to be from the man he’s wanted since he met him, and now is drift compatible with, well, that’s Hux’s business. 

He bites back a groan at Kylo’s swipe of the flat of his tongue up his shaft, with little kittenish dips of the point of his tongue across his glans to taste him and Ren then slides his mouth down, so, so slowly that Hux can’t help but curse. 

Hux can't open his eyes, can’t look down to see that dark head bobbing or it’ll be over too soon. Ren takes Hux’s hands and places them on his head and Hux experimentally tugs at Ren’s hair, tilts his hips up to make Ren take him all the way and Ren moans around him, a low buzz in his throat.

That’s all it takes. 

Ren’s a good little soldier, swallows it all down, suckles Hux clean, sending tiny aftershocks through him. 

Then Ren’s sitting up and grinning, his lips swollen from sucking Hux’s cock, hair wild from Hux’s hands and Hux is suddenly paralysed with fear. He doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve this man to want him, or deserve a second chance to pilot. But Hux didn’t become the youngest general in the Pan Pacific Defence Corps without bravery, without sacrifice. He knows what they have to do.

Ren’s grin has faded.

“Hux? You okay?”

“...we _have_ to pilot together. We need a Jaeger of our own.”

Ren beams, delight clear on his face. “I know! I feel it too!” 

“Let’s go to my quarters.”

\---

Kylo takes him apart slowly, easing one finger into him, sliding to the first knuckle, then the second. 

“We have all night. Relax, Hux.”

Kylo rubs his face against Hux’s abdomen, teases his half-hard cock with his tongue.

“I thought you’d be rash in bed… selfish. I’d -ah!- I’d forgotten sex could feel like this.” Hux admits.

Kylo adds a second finger, grazing Hux’s prostate and Hux bites his lip to stifle a moan. Kylo pulls his fingers out.

“I want to hear you Hux.” 

“I don’t want the rest of the base to hear us.”

 _To know about us_ was left unsaid.

“I think when we start to drift together the whole base will have a pretty good idea that we’re together now.”

“Together?”

“Did you think I could fuck you and go out to my death?” he throws Hux’s words from earlier back at him.

He slips two fingers back in, Hux sighs with satisfaction at the pressure. 

Watching Hux come apart on his fingers is one of the best things Kylo’s ever experienced, it’s right up there with drifting, with the rush of a kaiju kill, of knowing he’s survived another day. 

“Kylo,” Hux groans suddenly, body spasming around Kylo’s fingers as Kylo grazes his prostate again. “If you keep going, I’m going to come.”

“Yeah.” Kylo bends his head, lets his tongue lap up a fat pearl of pre-cum on Hux’s cockhead. “That’s the plan, I want you to.” 

“I want you in me.”

“Later, sweetheart. Come for me.” Kylo’s surprised how breathless his own voice is, how wrecked he sounds from just touching Hux. 

Hux comes, spurting onto his own belly and Kylo fucks him through it, three fingers deep now, just enough to stretch.

He keeps going until Hux weakly pushes him away.

“I did really want you to fuck me.”“I know, next time.” 

Hux spreads his legs. “Please.”

“Well, I can’t resist an invite like that.” 

Kylo slides a pillow under Hux to tilt his hips up, then slicks his cock and pushes in. He was wrong earlier, this is it, _this_ is the best thing he’s ever experienced, from the soft sigh Hux makes when Kylo finally bottoms out, to how hot and slick Hux is inside, the bitten off groan he makes when Kylo starts to move, how his arms wind around Kylo’s neck to hold him close.

Kylo’s fucked a lot of people, he’s never been choosy, but he’s never had this, this perfect balance of pleasure taken and received. 

It’s perfect. They’re going to be perfect together.

\---

Kylo opens one eye, groggily groaning in protest as the light flicks on. Hux is sitting up beside him in the bed, alarm clear all over his face. 

“You were having a nightmare.” Hux says gently.

Kylo wipes at his eyes, he’s been crying, though thankfully he can’t remember the nightmare. Though are they truly nightmares if they are something that he lived though, or simply bad memories? 

Kylo sits up, wraps the blanket around his legs. 

“The part of my file that’s redacted... it involves Snoke.”

Hux had only heard the rumours about Snoke, an ex-military scientist who was known for dubious experimental techniques and had allegedly drifted with kaiju. 

Brendol Hux had developed the training program alongside Snoke, prior to revelations of physical abuse of his trainees. And abuse of Hux himself of course, but he’d never pressed charges. No one would have listened to him. 

Kylo continues slowly, as if he’s choosing his words carefully, or it was the first time he’d ever said it out loud. 

“I was 13? Maybe just had turned 14? Your father told my parents it was an accelerated pilot program, and they agreed to let me join. They were based in the Manila Shatterdome and I was still in the US so it worked out for them- their wayward son learning some military discipline and walking in their footsteps…

...Snoke said I was genetically strong. He wanted to take Rey as well, but she was too young. She was only ten when I left. A _kid_. The experiments would have killed her, or warped her into something terrible.” 

“You were a kid too.” Hux gently reminds him. “What did they do?”

Kylo grimaces. “Everything. That’s not an exaggeration. They’d make me run neural loads by myself, trying to develop a new, closer neural bond with a Jaeger. Snoke’d force me to interface with the kaiju brains we had scavenged to use their contained knowledge against them. I’d wake up bleeding from my eyes and nose and I’d be told ‘try again!’. One week I was kept in a sensory deprivation tank, fed through an IV. I thought I was going to die in there.”

Hux feels nauseated at this. This sounded like torture. Kylo had only been a teenager. 

“How are you still in one piece?”

“I kept thinking, if I fail, they’ll take Rey...Rey’ll suffer because I’m not strong enough. So I kept going. There were 8 of us in the program, his brave knights he called us, ready to face the kaiju threat head on.”

Kylo looks down at the blanket, picking at the fabric between two fingers before continuing.

“The Shatterdome was attacked by a kaiju. I can’t remember the name. One of our group was a man called Ren. I-.”

Kylo stops speaking, swallows hard and Hux rubs his back reassuringly.

“You don’t have to continue. It’s okay.”

“No, I want to. The kaiju attack had knocked debris in front of the lab door, blocking it. Ren- Ren was trapped in the lab with Brendol and Snoke when the- when the fire started. I could have saved all three of them, but Ren shook his head at me through the window. He died so we could be free. He wasn’t a good man, but he saved us all. We ran.” 

“That’s how Brendol died? His old buddies told me he died bravely, fighting the kaiju.”

“Nope, he got burnt alive. I’d apologise, but I’m guessing he wasn’t father of the year either.”

Hux scoffed. “I should be thanking you. The only thing he gave me was red hair and multiple scars. He was a Grade-A Asshole.”

“Scars?”

“Do you think you were the first he abused? I was the prototype for some of those techniques. Luckily I was too valuable in the field to keep in the lab. But don’t mention any of this to Phasma, please. He’d been a mentor to her. She was an orphan, both parents had been killed by the kaiju and she and her brother were scraping by, scrabbling for food and resources in a devastated area. He took her in, put her in the program and she thrived. She had been moulded by him to drift with me. That’s all he ever wanted, the Hux name out there, killing kaiju. Didn’t matter what I wanted.” 

“What do you want?”

“You.” Hux kisses Kylo softly. “Also, yeah, okay: to kill kaiju. He wasn’t wrong about that.” 

“Do you think this will be mentioned in the history books? Brave pilots Hux and Ren fought the kaiju, saved the world?”

Hux barks out a laugh. “If we survive, maybe. If we don’t...there probably won’t be any history books in the future. No people left to read them.”

“That’s a bit dark.”

“Life’s a bit dark right now. We’ve three Jaeger teams left. Three versus however many of them are out there, waiting for us under the ocean.”

Sleep takes a while to come.

\---

They take each other apart again the next morning, the first splashes of light appearing over them from the small, high window in Hux’s quarters.

Hux feels like he’s waited a long time for this, he can’t remember the last time someone took their time with him like this...if someone had ever touched him exactly like this. 

Afterwards he puts Kylo on his stomach, dark hair inky on Hux’s pillow in the semi-darkness, his groans still loud despite the pillow muffling them.

Kylo’s muscles tremble under his fingers as Hux spreads him wide and licks deeply, his tongue swirling around Kylo’s rim. 

Kylo bucks under him and Hux pushes deeper, fucks into the hole with his tongue, laps at the muscle. 

Kylo slides a hand between the mattress and his body, jerks off while Hux licks into him again and again. He comes with a shudder and rolls over onto his back.

“Wow. No one’s ever done that to me before.”

“That’s a shame.”

“I also never felt this way about anyone before.”

“Same.” 

It feels silly to reach out and hold hands, but as the sun rises above them, they know today- like all days now- could be their last.

\---

The final Jaeger is ready. 

Rose sighs happily, staring up at her handiwork while the group walks up to the giant machine.

“Isn’t she a beauty? The only Mark Five Jaeger ever built.”

Phasma wolf-whistles. “She’s gorgeous.” She turns to Hux. “And she’s yours, General, if you’ll have her.”

Hux is rarely surprised, but he’s lost for words now. He’d expected they’d take the repaired _Force_ not the new Jaeger.

Ren grins, clearly in on the surprise and he nudges Hux with his shoulder. 

“She’ll be ours, Hux. Say yes.” 

“ _Yes_.”

\---

Finn has a whiteboard with a diagram clearly labelled of the bomb system and attack plan. 

He points at the attack plan. “As you can see it needs to be a three Jaeger team attack. One per kaiju, then one for the breach. _Black Squadron_ droids can’t take those depths so will remain on the surface as the final line of defence.”

Black Squadron look unhappy, but say nothing. They know it’s true.

Finn continues. “Rey, Rose and I have built a bomb. It’ll be attached to _the Force_. We place it inside the breach, then detonate it. It’ll seal the breach. End this.”

Everyone stares in silence at the whiteboards behind him. 

There’s a depressingly short list left on the other whiteboard, smudges of ink marking where there once was two dozen Jaegers at this particular Shatterdome and another two dozen single-pilot droid Jaegers in the city. 

There’s now six in total:

_\---The Force: Rey + Rose_

_\---The Millenium Falcon: Lando + Chewie_

_\---The Final Jaeger: Hux + Ren_

_\---Black Squadron: Dameron +Wexley + Pava._

“ _The Finalizer_.” Hux hears himself saying out loud. 

“The what?” Finn asks. 

“That’s what the last Jaeger will be called. She’s _the Finalizer_.”

Kylo rolls his eyes but nods. “Sure. I agree: she’s _The Finalizer._ ” 

Finn rubs out the ‘final Jaeger’ and scribbles in ‘ _The Finalizer_ ’ instead. 

“We want to rename _the Force_ too.” Rey pipes up.

“ _The_ _Resistance_!” Rose calls out and Rey punches the air.

“Yes! _The Resistance_!”

Finn very patiently erases _‘The Force’_ and writes _‘The Resistance’_ instead.

The entire room turns to look at Lando and Chewie.

Lando raises an eyebrow. “No matter who pilots her, the _Falcon_ is the _Falcon_.”

Chewie nods. 

The room falls silent again and they stare at the plan.

It has to work. They only get one shot.

\---

The docking bay around the newly christened _Resistance_ is unusually busy, two hull teams working in unison, one from the _Finalizer_ , the other the _Force’s_ usual team. When Hux reaches the _Finalizer_ there’s no one working on it, only Phasma, Mitaka and Thannison standing by, with Kylo of course. Hux is glad he doesn’t have an audience for his first drift in years. He probably has Phasma to thank for that.

Hux feels self conscious in his flight suit as his panels are placed on but when he steps into the head pod, it’s like he’s never stopped being a pilot. 

Kylo hesitates to walk to a particular side. “Which side do you want, Hux?”

“Doesn’t matter. I can work either. Another fun Brendol training exercise. Your choice.”

Kylo takes the left, where Rey previously stood.

“I don’t bring anything to the drift. Brendol made sure of it.” Hux warns him. 

The comm crackles to life. 

“LOCCENT here, are we ready gentlemen?”

Hux puts his helmet on with shaky hands. ‘ _This will work. This will work’_ he repeats to himself as the _Finalizer_ powers up and the automated pilot system announces the three words they had been waiting for:

**_NEURAL HANDSHAKE INITIATED_ **

Memories flicker through his mind, Ren’s memories. 

_A tiny, gap toothed Rey on a slide_

_Chewie swinging Kylo in the air_

_A figurine of the Millenium Falcon on a desk amongst a pile of homework_

Then there’s the gap Rey had mentioned, then it fast forwards to the more recent years.

_Seeing Rey again after years apart, the young woman she’d grown up to be, the overwhelming feeling of relief seeing her happy and strong_

_The first time Ren saw_ the Force

_Rey giving him a high-five after their first drift_

_Poe and Kylo playing basketball, Finn with Rey on his shoulders trying to block them both_

_Hux smiling at him in the kwoon, STICK raised_

**_DRIFT STABLE: HOLDING AT 98%. 99%. 100%._ **

It feels like falling onto a soft bed when tired, or sinking into a warm bath, or holding hands with a loved one. It’s that perfect feeling of being afloat and being together.

They run through diagnostics quickly, then perform some simple calibration exercises. Their hemispheres stay in perfect alignment throughout. 

They allow Mitaka and Thannison to remove their panels and wires, then force themselves to stroll away casually, standing apart in the lift that takes them from the pod to the base of the Jaeger. Kylo takes Hux’s hand and tugs him towards the docking bay below the _Finalizer,_ instead of towards the bright lights of the mess or their rooms.

It’s completely empty in the bay, everyone must still be working on the _Resistance_ , or finished their shift. Hux isn’t sure what time it is, something as mundane as time always seems a little irrelevant after drifting. 

This bay corridor is in mostly darkness, lit only by muted emergency lighting along one wall. It should feel spooky, creeping through the darkness, but his hand is in Kylo’s and Hux feels brave, like they can face anything together. 

They’re going to have to, soon.

They reach the foot of the _Finalizer,_ and without speaking Ren pushes Hux against it, and Hux turns, tugs his flight suit down, past his knees. Hux braces himself against the cool metal, while Ren preps him. Hux briefly prays he’s not using engine lube, but then Ren is pushing into him and it’s good, slightly too rough, slightly too much and he can't think, can’t breathe, can only feel. 

Ren moans against his neck, breath tickling the short hairs on Hux’s nape and Hux knows exactly how he’s feeling, the leftover bleed of _unison_ from drifting with Kylo still twitching in his brain. The sex they’ve had before now has been great, fantastic even, but this is on another level Hux can’t even put into words. Every roll of Ren’s hips punch Hux’s breath out of him, and he braces himself, pushes back, lets Ren just _take_ him, again and again. Hux wants to _give_ him everything.

It’s over far too quickly, and they stay together for a moment, panting. Ren pulls out and Hux winces at the slick feeling Kylo’s left behind, tugging his flight suit back up.

They’re still in the darkness of the bay and Kylo takes Hux’s hand again, pulls him in for a kiss, presses his free hand over Hux’s heart, and Hux mirrors him, feeling Kylo’s heartbeat under his fingertips. They don’t need words right now.

There’s going to be a double event tomorrow, and Hux’s going to send Kylo to his death, and be right beside him. Hux has faced down death before, watched hundreds die and sent dozens to die on his orders, but he’s never felt so helpless.

This could be their last night on earth.

\---

They curl up in Hux’s bed together, trying to let sleep come. 

“Tell me it'll be okay, that we'll make it through.” Kylo whispers. 

“You know I can't.”

“Lie to me just this once? Please?”

Kylo’s fingers tangle in the chain of Hux’s dog tags, softly clinking them together, smooth them down flat. 

“We’re going to be fine. We’ll all make it through.” Hux lies. 

Kylo nods, closes his eyes. 

“We’ll all make it through.” He echoes. “What will we do after we save the world?”

“We’ll buy a farm. We’ll get a cat.”

“Two cats. So they can have company.”

“Two cats.” Hux agrees.

Kylo sleeps then, but Hux lies awake for a long time.

\---

The double event occurs: the two kaiju claw their way from the breach and the Jaegers go to meet them. 

The Millenium Falcon takes out one kaiju, but suffers catastrophic failure when the other circles and breaks apart the head pod.

The emergency system takes the pilots straight to the surface. They’re hopefully alive, but the teams still fighting have no time to think about it, as the kaiju turns and goes straight for their head pods too. 

The Finalizer moves quickly, slices the kaiju in the legs, but it lands heavily, swiping for the Resistance. Both Jaegers make it through, kill the kaiju.

It’s almost over. Only the bomb needs to be delivered, and then they can rise to the surface. It’s almost over-

The comm crackles and Rose’s voice comes through. Her voice is shaky but strong.

“ _Finalizer_ , the bomb detonation cable is broken- the kaiju knocked it off, we can’t detonate- can you manually override it on the outside? I can talk you through the process. It’s risky but it’s our only bomb.”

Kylo looks to Hux who shakes his head and mutes the comm.

“If we do that, there’s a possibility both Jaegers could go up, and won’t be near enough to the breach. We’ll do it. We’ve got a brand new 100 tonne nuclear reactor firing under us, we’ll drop the _Finalizer_ into the breach, detonate inside.”

Kylo’s nodding even before Hux has finished speaking. He flicks the comm line back open.

“ _Resistance_ , listen carefully. We’re going to detonate the _Finalizer_ inside the breach-”

“Kylo-” Rey breaks through.

“Rey, listen. Your bomb is unstable now. This is the best way, you and Rose both know it, you built the damn thing, you know how much material is in our core. Go and do some awesome shit with your life, okay? I love you.”

There’s a wailing sob on the other end but Rose replies for them both: “Understood. _Resistance_ rising to surface. Godspeed _Finalizer_.”

Kylo watches the sand and water swirl beneath the _Resistance_ as it starts to rise. He turns to Hux. 

“Guess this is it then. The grand finale. End of the world.”

They don’t need to discuss it, but both move towards the breach, limbs moving in perfect harmony. 

The breach yawns open and they fall. 

\---

The inside of the breach looks more alien than Hux could ever imagined, bright lines of plasma flickering and spitting and thousands of alien creatures staring at them as the _Finalizer_ tumbles down, down, down.

They’re not deep enough yet to detonate, and he can’t see Ren’s face through his helmet but he realises what Ren’s about to do before he does it. 

Ren flicks the pilot’s emergency eject switch: but only on Hux’s system. 

Hux’s helpless as the pod shoots him, and only him, towards the surface, his body flattened against the base of the pod as he struggles to breathe, struggles to scream in anger. He reaches the surface and the lid pops off, he clutches the side of his head, his ears popping at the sudden pressure change from resurfacing. He sits up, rips his helmet off, drops it over the side of the pod and sucks in fresh air. 

His shoulder panel is beeping reassuringly, homing beacon automatically activated. He can see helicopters in the distance taking off from the base pad and he knows he’s safe. 

But Ren-

Ren’s still down there. Alone.

\---

The aliens are looking at him with curious eyes, heads tilting back and forth. 

_You are the one._

“Me?” Kylo feels stupid replying out loud to them.

A thousand heads nod as one.

_You are the one Snoke promised to send us, to carry our message above._

_To help us rule._

There’s a pressure at Kylo’s temples, like invisible fingers holding his head and he tries to move, but the fingers follow him, how can there be fingers touching him, he’s still wearing his helmet- 

_Submit, Ben._

_It’ll be easier._

He feels his limbs become weightless briefly, as if he was floating and he lashes out, kicks at the air.

The creatures laugh as one.

_Foolish child._

_Be good for us, Ben Solo. Obey._

He struggles against the invisible hands once again, barely able to move now. He summons the last bit of energy and flicks the switch to overload the nuclear power system of _the Finalizer_. He hopes he’s gotten deep enough it’ll seal the breach for good.

_Silly child, we could have ruled together-_

_Sorry Hux._ Kylo thinks before everything goes black. 

_\---_

There’s a helicopter making low, slow passes over where Hux had surfaced, but Hux ignores the winch lowering towards him, pulls his legs close to his body, rests his head on his knees. He’s too numb to cry. 

Phasma’s voice comes over loud and clear on his comm. 

“Hux, come home, please. The breach is sealed.” 

He’d been waiting to hear that phrase for years, and now, it almost didn’t seem worth it. 

Ren’s homing beacon suddenly becomes active on Hux’s arm display and he feels sick at the sight of it. 

He’s confident it’s Ren’s body coming to the surface, automatically spat out as the Jaeger detonated. No one could have survived that explosion.

The pod bursts through the surface of the waves, the lid comes off and Ren’s lying still, not moving. Hux tips himself over the edge of his own pod, swims the few feet to Ren’s pod, hauls himself on-board with shaky arms. Ren’s not breathing. 

Hux can’t start chest compressions, Ren’s still in his rigid flight suit, so he pulls his limp body onto his lap, holds him close. 

Ren looks so young like this, expression unworried. Hux presses a kiss to his hair, to his scar, to his mouth and he finally cries.

The war is over, the kaiju are defeated, the world has won, but Hux has lost everything. 

“Hux?”

He must be hallucinating. Ren is blinking up at him. 

He can’t form words, but holds Ren until they’re safely aboard the helicopter.

\---

Kylo and Hux lie side by side in the med bay, bodies and minds weak and exhausted. But they’re together. Chewie and Lando are in a serious, but stable condition in the next room.

They’ve won.

Rey comes by and kisses them both on the forehead, squeezes Kylo’s hand once and leaves them in peace. 

“What do you want to do now Kylo?” Hux asks. 

“I guess once we’re released from here we better go buy a farm. You’re stuck with me now.” 

\---

People always ask pilots what it was like to drift with someone. To know them _that_ intimately. 

Kylo says it’s like waves crashing on the shore, the ebb and flow of the tide. Hux tells them it’s like magnets, a force of attraction and power rolled into one.

Rey says it’s the summer breeze. Rose says it’s peace, contentment.

They all say it’s home. It’s chosen family. 

It’s the future they fought for.


End file.
